Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: The Guild Master's Demise
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It was laughable that a guy who gathered a mob to raid another guild commanded such high regard among his own people.
“If you cared about others half as much as your own guild members, the world would be a much better place.”
The hunters who heard Kang Jin-hyuk's words laughed mockingly right in his face.
“All we need to do is look after our own rice bowls.”
“Why bother caring about those lowlifes?”
Their reaction was exactly as Kang Jin-hyuk had expected, so it stirred no emotion in him.
Most hunters thought that way, which made life even harder for low-rank hunters.
If Kang Jin-hyuk hadn't monopolized a dungeon from his attic room, he too would have just trembled in rage at their mockery and disdain.
“You guys really are all bark and no bite.”
Just from what he'd seen so far, it was clear words would get him nowhere with these types.
As Kang Jin-hyuk raised his baseball bat, the hunters assumed their stances.
Three of them crouched low and charged first, aiming to seize the initiative.
“Die!”
Kang Jin-hyuk had no intention of showing mercy to a hunter aiming for his throat.
An eye for an eye.
It was only right to repay those who came at him with murderous intent in kind.
Thwack!
One hunter's head exploded like a watermelon, killing him on the spot.
Seeing their comrade's gruesome end, the other two hesitated.
Kang Jin-hyuk didn't stand there with his arms crossed, watching.
Without hesitation, he swung the bat, smashing two more watermelons before stopping.
“Huh?”
“What the... just now...”
The hunters stared blankly at the scene, which had ended before they could even count to ten.
They couldn't even process what they'd just witnessed.
“Keep standing there like idiots, and you'll die too.”
Kang Jin-hyuk didn't want to beat defenseless humans to death, so he deliberately provoked them.
Thanks to that, the hunters snapped out of it and realized the fate of their fallen comrades.
“You bastard!”
Regaining their senses didn't mean they thought rationally.
Furious at their comrade's brutal death, the hunters unleashed every skill they had at Kang Jin-hyuk.
Some approached stealthily like shadows, while others charged with full-body shields.
From behind them, arrows of fire conjured by skills flew in support, creating quite the spectacle.
It was extravagant firepower for an attack on just one person.
“Not bad, I guess.”
To counter their flashy onslaught, Kang Jin-hyuk chose a single swing.
He converted about sixty percent of the MP he'd charged into the baseball bat on his flight back to Korea into aura.
A deep golden light enveloped the bat, turning it into a massive golden club in his hands.
Kang Jin-hyuk swung the bat with all his might, treating the charging hunters like baseballs.
From his toes, through his hips, to his fingertips.
The swing, wasting not a single muscle fiber, scattered aura and whipped up a fierce storm.
The dispersed aura turned into razor-sharp blades, slashing mercilessly at the hunters' bodies.
“Gaaahhh!”
“Uwaaaah!”
The flames flying toward Kang Jin-hyuk were swallowed by the aura.
The hunters, their skin and muscles torn by the aura's edges, screamed as they tumbled.
“Damn it!!”
“You damn bastard!!”
“Die!”
A few hunters gritted their teeth, endured the pain, and barely closed the distance.
But narrowing the gap didn't mean their attacks would land.
Kang Jin-hyuk simply punched each one lightly, sending them crumpling.
“Guh!”
The hunter who took a fist to the solar plexus made a choking sound and face-planted into the ground.
The others were no different.
With their battered bodies, they couldn't withstand punches infused with aura and stay on their feet.
“This can't be...”
Choi Chang-yeol despaired as he watched his guild members collapse like puppets with cut strings.
Those who had pushed through the pain to reach Kang Jin-hyuk were the elite of his guild.
With even them falling helplessly, Choi Chang-yeol could do nothing.
“I... surrender...”
Choi Chang-yeol dropped his weapon and knelt on his own.
He realized continuing to fight this monster would only increase the body count.
As guild master, he couldn't gamble his members' lives on a hopeless bet.
The backlash against the losers terrified him, but with no path to victory, he had to prioritize their safety.
“I admit defeat. Let's call it here.”
Choi Chang-yeol wanted to end the fight now.
But that was just the wishful thinking of the one who started it.
It completely ignored the perspective of the victim who'd been suddenly attacked out of the blue.
“Who says so?”
“...What?”
“Who says this ends on your terms?”
Unlike Choi Chang-yeol, Kang Jin-hyuk had no intention of stopping here.
“You tried to kill innocent people, and now you want to just call it quits?”
Saying it out loud left him speechless at the sheer absurdity.
“If I hadn't been strong enough to stop you, what would have happened to my guild?”
Choi Chang-yeol couldn't answer Kang Jin-hyuk's question.
This was a war launched by multiple guilds banding together.
The fate of the losers went without saying.
“Letting you all go wouldn't satisfy me. And there's no guarantee you won't come at us again.”
“Th-then what do you want? You gonna kill us all?”
“No, I'm not some psycho killer. I'm not slaughtering this many people.”
Kang Jin-hyuk watched Choi Chang-yeol relax at his words.
Seeing him assume he'd be safe brought an involuntary chuckle.
“Why so relieved? You're the one I'm going to kill.”
Choi Chang-yeol's face drained of color at Kang Jin-hyuk's murder announcement.
“What did you just...”
“You guild masters are all going to die.”
The leader's position came with responsibility in exchange for wielding power.
The guild masters had formed the alliance and planned this war, so Kang Jin-hyuk planned to hold them accountable.
The first step in that purge was Choi Chang-yeol, the alliance's head.
“D-don't make me laugh! You think I'll just die quietly?!”
Choi Chang-yeol pulled a new sword from his inventory.
With Kang Jin-hyuk gunning for him, he intended to resist desperately to save his skin.
“You think that'll change anything?”
Kang Jin-hyuk quietly admonished him not to bother with pointless struggles.
“You madman! Who the hell would willingly stick out their neck when someone's out to kill them?!”
“If you don't come willingly, what then? You think the outcome changes?”
Kang Jin-hyuk flicked his arm casually, swinging the bat lightly.
Choi Chang-yeol's sword shattered helplessly at the tip of the bat.
The childish swing breaking his sword was enough to fill Choi Chang-yeol with despair.
“You damn...!”
As Choi Chang-yeol reached for another sword, Kang Jin-hyuk this time smashed his forearm with the bat.
The bat pierced Choi Chang-yeol's armor—which no ordinary weapon could breach—and shattered his bones to pieces.
“Gaaaaahhh!”
Choi Chang-yeol clutched his mangled arm and screamed.
The pain threatened to drive him mad, but he desperately clung to consciousness.
Passing out here might mean he'd never wake again.
“Stop! Stop! I was wrong! Let's talk this out!”
“If you wanted to talk, you should've done it before trying to rob me.”
It was far too late for such proposals now.
As Choi Chang-yeol kept backpedaling to create distance, Kang Jin-hyuk targeted his legs this time.
The baseball bat gave no chance to dodge, pulverizing Choi Chang-yeol's shinbone.
“Uwaaaah! Aaaah!!”
Choi Chang-yeol clutched his leg and rolled on the ground.
“Spare me! Please! Let me live!!”
No guild member could help their guild master, reduced to a pathetic sight by the baseball bat.
Choi Chang-yeol's men were shredded like rags by the aura storm, bleeding out profusely.
Barely clinging to life with flickering consciousness, they couldn't step up for him.
“The guy who started a war to slaughter others is now begging for his own life.”
Kang Jin-hyuk felt no pangs of conscience hearing Choi Chang-yeol's pleas.
Not even a shred of pity stirred in him.
It was all seeds sown by Choi Chang-yeol himself.
As the alliance leader, he'd been the most aggressive in this war.
Kang Jin-hyuk saw letting such a figure walk away unscathed as folly.
To show what happens when you mess with another guild.
Other guilds needed a warning, and the guild masters like Choi Chang-yeol would serve as that example.
“You...! You think you'll get away with this?!”
When begging failed, Choi Chang-yeol resorted to threats.
“You're gonna kill me and the other alliance guild masters? The Association won't stand for that!”
“No, they will. Just look at this war.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“The Association never sides with the weak.”
The Association knew Pantheon was in crisis but ignored their plea for help.
Pantheon's odds of victory were nonexistent.
“The Association's always been like that. That's why low-rank hunters get abandoned.”
The Association only favored hunters who brought them profit.
That unfair policy meant Kang Jin-hyuk got no benefits back in his D-rank days.
“If they find out you idiots pissed me off, the Association will quietly slink away.”
Choi Chang-yeol had no rebuttal to Kang Jin-hyuk's argument.
He'd long known the Association was a profit-driven bunch.
As a guild master leading people, he probably knew their inner workings better than Kang Jin-hyuk.
“Damn! Damn it!”
Choi Chang-yeol concluded the Association would abandon them, just as Kang Jin-hyuk said.
Realizing even threats wouldn't work, he crawled like a maggot to escape.
“...Pathetic sight.”
Kang Jin-hyuk couldn't fathom how someone who valued his life so much could start a war so easily.
“Just die peacefully.”